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Tag Archives: Waterstones

Life Cycle Of A Writer: Laura On Tour

We here at Romaniac HQ have eaten our Easter chocolate, written our way through the holiday and enjoyed the occasional Prosecco. We hope you all had a lovely Easter weekend.

My poster for Littlemoor Library.

I’ve been busy on my mini tour, which continues this Saturday, 22nd April 2017, at Littlemoor Library, details here. I’m really looking forward to this Shared Reading event where I’ll be reading from WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU, and supporting my local library. It would be lovely to see you there.

Victoria Cornwall & Linda Mitchelmore

I returned last week from a trip to Exeter – the first Choc Lit Day, organised by my publisher, held at Exeter Library. It was a wonderful way to spend the day, among readers and writers. The four ChocLiteers – Margaret James, Victoria Cornwall, Linda Mitchelmore and Laura E James (me) spoke about our publication journeys and the importance of social media for today’s writers, held a fun quiz and chatted with members of the audience. There was an opportunity for writers to pitch to the Choc Lit editor, too. And Victoria Cornwall and I filmed our very first Facebook Live video.

The next Choc Lit Day is Saturday 20th May 2017, at Southampton Library, which I shall be attending, and a third date has been announced for Saturday 17th June 2017 at Stockton Library. Details here.

Following my visit to Exeter, I continued my tour with a drive up the M3 and the M25 to Watford, where I’d been invited by the Watford Writers to take part in the Watford Lit Fest. I grew up in Watford and was delighted to be asked there to chat about writing and my novels. I was interviewed by a long-standing friend with whom I used to work, Helen Nicell, herself a writer. It was a fabulous experience and one I thoroughly enjoyed.

As a thank you to Waterstones Watford, who supplied sale copies of both FOLLOW ME FOLLOW YOUand WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU at the Watford Writer’s event, I popped in to the branch the next day to sign a few books. It’s a wonderful new store in the high street and definitely worth the visit if you’re in the area.

It’s been hectic, but I’ve loved every minute of the tour so far. Of course, I’ve had to pace myself and allow recovery time between events, but I’m rested and ready to go.

What a busy, fun and exciting week this is. Yesterday, we Romaniacs celebrated our 5th birthday and cheered Sue’s fantastic thriller, Sister Sister, as it hit the top 5 on Kindle, today is Valentine’s Day, and Saturday, I’ll be at Waterstones Dorchester signing copies of What Doesn’t Kill You.

I was at Waterstones Dorchester on Valentine’s Day two years ago, signing copies of my second novel, Follow Me Follow You. It was such a lovely day. The table was perfectly decorated with red love hearts, books were wrapped in paper and bows, enticing customers to go on a blind date with their next read, and I spent the time chatting with people about books and authors.

I’m really looking forward to Saturday’s event. To have a paperback is special, even more so with What Doesn’t Kill You, as the front cover sports an author quote from my good friend and fellow Romaniac, Sue Fortin. Neither of us could predict that happening when we first met five years ago. There is also a depiction of a well-loved landmark on the front – Portland Bill lighthouse.There will be copies of the book available for purchase on Saturday, and I will have one of my trusty Pentel pens in hand, but which colour should I use?

Do I go with blues and greens to complement the cover? Or should I stick with traditional black ink? I might just have to take my pencil case and decide on the day. What would you do?

I look forward to seeing you all on Saturday. Dorchester is a fascinating Roman town, and it has literary links, too – Hardy referred to Dorchester as Casterbridge – so please do come and spend the day, and pop into the wonderfully supportive Waterstones.

This post comes with a Public Health Warning – it’s fast and dynamic, just like Mandy herself and at the end of it, you’ll need to sit down and catch your breath! I really don’t know where she gets all her energy and enthusiasm from. 🙂

Over to you, Mandy …

First off, I have to say that I am a HUGE Romaniac fan! You ladies are brilliant and I am left completely entertained after every post! It is an honour to be invited into your posse for the day!

So, what has been happening in my world lately? Well, I am still touring! Taking Charge, my first novel with Sapphire Star Publishing came out on 3 May and it’s been doing really well in the UK, in Germany and in particular, the US. Off the back of this success I’ve been asked to do another blog tour! YAY! So for the whole of September I will be bouncing around the US (unfortunately not physically but virtually) giving you fun interviews, writing tips and telling you a few things about Lady B you might not know! You can find out all the details of the tour stops on my websitewww.mandybaggot.webs.com

As for bookstore signings, well, as most of you know Waterstones have reviewed their criteria for author signings and this is really going to change things for me. Unfortunately, I am not going to be able to travel the country signing at stores now. The main bullet points of the new criteria are:-

A bookseller must be in attendance at each signing (i.e. authors must not leave the table and approach customers)

The signing should not be longer than 2 hours – if there are people waiting to see an author then it can continue until the last person in the queue has been seen.

Even if I was able to secure a signing at a store, with travelling time and costs it wouldn’t be viable to be at a store for only two hours. I have met some fantastic people on my travels in 2012 and I’m really gutted that I won’t be able to get out and meet the readers as much as I want. However, I do still have two signings – Waterstones Fareham andWaterstones Portsmouth – and a big thank you to them for honouring the events. All the details are on my website and if you can make it I would love to see you!

Lady B hit the number one spot! Yes, my novel Knowing Me Knowing You hit the number one spot on the Amazon Top 100 Free chart in July. And not only did it reach #1 in the UK, I was also #1 in France and Germany too! There is nothing like being #1 I can tell you! These type of promotions are an essential for authors like myself because it encourages readers to try a new writer they might not have heard of, or considered before and hopefully when they read it and love it, they will buy my other books. That seems to be what happens – can’t believe there are people they haven’t heard of me though – perhaps I need to be a bit more interactive LOL! Oooo and I was also in Woman magazine back in June! How exciting to be the Hot Read of the Week – that made me feel like a proper author!

I will be taking part in the Festival of Romance again this year! Yes, last year I wowed everyone dressed as a chicken – who knows what outfit I might don this year! The Festival of Romance is taking place in Bedford this year from Friday 16th November -Sunday 18th November. I will be signing books at the Romance Fair at the Corn Exchange on the Saturday and Saturday evening you can catch me at the Rock Star party reading an extract from Strings Attached! I’ve also entered two of my books in the awards. Taking Charge is up for Best Romantic Read and Strings Attached is up for Best Self-Published novel. Fingers crossed!

As we speak I am in the process of finishing my sixth novel, Security! I am really excited about this novel as it’s a little bit different from anything I’ve written before. The main characters are pop princess Autumn Raine and her newly-appointed bodyguard, Nathan Regan. Autumn is quite a character – she’s confident and assured on stage but away from the limelight she is weak and vulnerable and very much in need of TLC. Nathan is a career soldier who wears his heart firmly wrapped up in Kevlar. He is hired to protect Autumn when a terrorist group threatens to kidnap her. There are guns and kidnap attempts, music, a small island retreat and a Jamaican woman who can cook a mean chicken and handle an automatic weapon! Has that intrigued you enough? Well you’ll probably going to have to wait until 2013 I’m afraid!